Keep Your Style
by Starbrigid
Summary: Inuicentric gen InuKai, MomoRyo, etc. Inui's relationship with Kaidoh becomes interesting, Tezuka's defeat is planned and hopefully executed, Fuji's in the picture somewhere, and his parents and sister become interested at the worst possible time.
1. Variable 1

Pairings- Depending on how you look at it, gen, InuKai, InuiTezuka.

Disclaimer- PoT is not mine.

Author's Notes- Named after the ending song. The lyrics at the end are from the translation by the Anime-Otakus group.

***

"And thus," Inui read, "The western novel The Lord of the Flies is an inaccurate representation of human nature." His gaze swept across the room, from the teacher to his classmates, light glinting off his glasses ominously. "Civilization would have deteriorated much sooner."

His report was met with silence, then the teacher nodded. "Thank you, Inui-san. Interesting points." Inui's gaze drifted further across the room, focusing on the regulars there, analyzing their actions, as always. They'd actually all listened. Fuji, in their class that day for some reason, was giving him a truly delighted smile, if what might have been a rather condescending one.

Inui's slight smile turned into something close to his trademark manic one. "I never said believed any of this. I wanted to see if I could make all of you think that way." He walked back to his seat, nodding as he passed Oishi, who smiled at him vaguely. He set himself back down in the chair, and the class continued once again without him.

He opened his green notebook under his desk, frowning irritably for a second when he noticed that a few pages at the front were falling loose of the spiral binding. He ripped them out fully and folded them in careful thirds, leaning down and pushing them into the pockets of his uniform.

His report had been done fairly hasty in comparison to his usual work ethic, but Inui found quick, more emotional actions like that could produce the most interesting results for correspondingly emotional questions like the one he'd been given, or at least they could be considered to do so from an impartial, detached perspective. He'd known there was a sufficient chance of about 78% that the teacher would be too intimidated by his intelligence and manner to truly ingest what he was saying anyway.

Part of his brain was working on the prospective ingredients for a new, even better health drink, as it had been for a large part of the morning. He would very much like to see even Fuji crumble under his new creation, though without any serious or long-term damage caused, of course. Pencil in his hand drawing out plans for Kaidoh and calculating probability of success of formations for their new pair, Inui's attention was really focused out the window. He could see Tezuka in a nearby classroom, also seated at the window and staring out, expression in those stern dark brown eyes unfathomable. Tezuka pushed his glasses up, and Inui did the same, an unconscious imitation he always felt the need to do when he saw someone complete the action.

Deliberately, he removed his own improbably thick frames, rubbing his eyes, careful to look away from his classmates, for this was something he wouldn't show any of them. Tezuka, the window, the classroom, the whole of Seigaku, all of them instantly became nothing but a dark blur. Normally, being without his glasses made Inui feel different, younger, less intelligent, less in control- stupid. But if he just closed his eyes, what he saw- didn't see- there, that was the exact same. Hmm. He wondered how the addition of salt would affect Penal Tea's taste.

Opening his eyes again, Tezuka was still in Inui's blurred sight. His mechanical pencil, mint green and smooth, skidded around his plans for Kaidoh, and beside them, just Tezuka's name. Blindly, the lead in Inui's hand traced out just one word, Soon.

He was patient, after all, more patient than anyone knew. Like Oishi, only not nearly so benevolent as the other boy. His chance would come. Because, if you had to choose between being the predator or being the prey, which would you choose?

Keep Your Style

Starbrigid

Inui loved tennis practice. Even though he was no longer a regular, he still got the best chance of the day to collect data and observe many of his subjects of interest at once. Today he watched Tezuka, Fuji, Echizen, all of them. He watched the Golden Pair, because they were an extraordinary doubles pair, but contrary to all that, their legend and greatness, they were far from perfect. He watched Taka and his power and personality changes with a quiet, almost sly focus, because he had a new theory about him, reaching farther into the past, and somehow, he thought watching could tell him if it was valid. He had to keep watching Momoshiro because the boy was constantly developing.

Echizen had been one of the foremost in his sight ever since he'd beaten Inui, the freshman being the most truly promising of the whole team. Fuji he had still not given up on trying to get consistent data on. Kaidoh was his new pet project. And Tezuka...

"Does anyone have any salt?" he asked loudly, as innocently as possible, thermos in hand, and watched nearly the entire tennis team, freshman to regulars, wince or cover their heads.

Inui might have said that Tezuka had the regulars spend too much time on practice matches and not enough time on enforcing basic skills, but practice matches were a good opportunity to observe. And it was 79.5% probable, too, that Tezuka's overall methodology would still draw out the greatest possible results, judging by experience and the team's overall spirit, even against Inui's own data.

A strange manifestation of that spirit was showing in Kaidoh at the moment, hitting a continuous snake against Echizen, running towards the net with a sudden uncoiling snap forward. Inui sighed, almost indulgently. Kaidoh either hadn't listened or had disregarded what Inui had told him the last time they met. He was still using too much power.

Tezuka and Oishi seemed to be having a fairly relaxed long volley between them, speaking to each other quietly across the net. Almost contemplatively, what might have been whimsically on someone who wasn't Tezuka, the captain was making Oishi run more, aiming precision shots to hard-to-predict, seemingly random places, though they were very slow shots.

Echizen was watching Tezuka, lips parted unknowingly and golden eyes hurtful under his trademark cap's shadow. The chibi was so absorbed, he missed the curve of a particularly treacherous snake, reaching it too late after the bounce to catch up. Inui smiled secretively. Thanks to him, Kaidoh's Snake had improved, just like the Boomerang Snake had. It wasn't a focus or anything, Kaidoh could already hit the Snake successfully. But a side effect of the training- one that there was only a 22% chance Kaidoh himself was aware of- was that the Snake had become harder to track, too. Inui could hardly be called lazy, except for perhaps in his own self.

The world was getting more and more transparent to Inui's data every second.

***

Inui was used to rejection. He didn't mind it. Maybe he even preferred it. Some things just weren't supposed to hurt someone like him. Time went on, and other things happened after that event, his mind experiencing sensory pleasure and bombardment on a purely physical level as well as various mental and psychological stimulates. Rejection, as well as its homonyms and various corresponding concepts, meant nothing to him, he thought to himself, because it could all be reasoned out, and he held not just the power of observance, he also possessed the rarer and yet most necessary corresponding trait of cognition.

Inui thought of his parents, wondered why he had, then knew, just as he walked into the house that was solely his. Maybe, this new year-

Wait. There were two cars in the carport. Inui's eyes widened behind the ultimate focus lenses that shielded them. He pushed the door open- it was unlocked for some reason, an ominous change- and made his way in. The lights weren't out like he'd left them, but switched back on, yellow glow streaming from various rooms. Inui's grasp on his notebook became painfully tight. "Tadaima," he called softly, flourescent light shining across his glasses.

And sure enough, two voices, for the first time in years, answered, "Okaeri!"

Inui sank into a chair at the dinner table, feeling smaller than usual. His parents walked in, looking exactly the way he remembered them- way too good-looking, even at their ages, to be his parents, smartly-dressed, and with the tracks of intelligence marking their faces as their years. Groaning, Inui let his head fall and bury itself in his notebook.

***

Dinner, a family event for the first time ever, or so it seemed, though that wasn't true. "We're going to be back for a while," Inui Yuzuriha began.

"Why?" Inui asked, turning to his father, mouth twisted up acrimoniously.

"I read a book," Inui Shinobu said, eyes big and liquid brown like a boy's or a woman's, unshielded. Inui looked away from his father uncomfortably. He was almost as tall as the other man now. "It made me think about things. Like you, my heir, Sadahara, and responsibility."

"What's your intention?" Inui asked tersely. He couldn't think of any data to scribble down, left side of his brain for once totally blank.

"I'm your mother," Yuzuriha said, infuriatingly gentle. "I'm going to start being it."

"I don't want or need parents anymore," Inui said, keeping his accent and language formal, tone and words detached. If emotion didn't come into any of this, he'd be fine. "I won't bind myself to your will just because you feel some new need to be altruistic or fashionable."

"It's not like that," Yuzuriha said, softer this time, shrinking back from him.

"Sadahara." His father's voice was unyielding. "You are aware of your obligation."

Inui thought of Kaidoh, the snake-boy's improbably happy family, and his dedication to propriety. He wondered what could make people so different. He wished he could see some sort of useful data in this new situation, but he couldn't.

"Hai," he said finally. Tennis, then, because some people really cared about winning or losing, but he didn't.

***

Inui had gotten used to rejection. He preferred his parents not being there. He argued with them often, or at least he had when he was much younger and they'd still had a good amount of contact. The two of them, independent entities in business, had grown in success over the years, gradually going away more and more of the time. For the past couple years Inui had possessed almost completely free reign, parents traveling and taking business trips and living their unusually mature son alone in the house.

Inui took care of himself and did pretty much what he wanted, especially experimenting without interference. Such utmost detachment was probably a good thing, because the kind of person he was only liked such a thing, and besides, he knew he wasn't who his parents would have wanted. It wasn't like he particularly cared what they thought of him, but still.

His parents didn't even like tennis. When he'd been forced to try a sport in elementary, they had, pressed for an answer, absently suggested football together. They both played the world of science business, not a green court. Inui didn't know what his ambitions for the future were, his goals and prospects always changing as he went through adolescence. Maybe he might end up selling his drinks, or coaching tennis, or even playing it when he became an adult. But what his parents would have expected of their collective clone-

Inui Sadahara wasn't ever going to get married, or ever do anything that they would have wanted. He'd known since he was 12, since he'd stood outside a tennis court and seen Tezuka Kunimitsu play for the first time.

And his path had gone to intelligence, data tennis and analysis, all for someone who bore no name of Inui. There were parts of him he never showed anyone, and didn't care about, maybe even a source of strength. He was the thing he was sure neither of them would understand. 

***

For the first time ever, Inui missed their training session that day. Kaidoh stood at the side of the river, waiting, even though he knew his sempai, being this late already, would not be coming at all. He glared menacingly at anyone who gave him so much as a curious glance as they passed by. He waited for a long time, but eventually he had to go home. The sky overhead darkening by that time, Kaidoh raced off, pounding his legs as fast as he could. He passed the dunk smash idiot as he ran through the street tennis courts, but completely ignored the loud-mouthed broom-head, who was caught up arguing with some Fudomine player anyway.

Inui, entering the campus the next morning, was cornered by Kaidoh's low growl. "Where were you last night, Inui-sempai?"

Inui could look Kaidoh in the eye easily, because Kaidoh couldn't see his own. He absently noted that he could have reached down and pulled the dark bandana off his kouhai's head anytime he would have wanted, and without the slightest bit of exertion. "It was nothing. I apologize, Kaidoh. I'll be there tonight."

Kaidoh nodded. They'd stopped near a section of junior classrooms, the students there giving them a wide birth. Momoshiro walked by, shooting a brief antagonizing glance at Kaidoh before turning back to the girls he'd been talking to. Kaidoh's eyes followed his rival, a hiss escaping his lips, which caused another nearby group of girls to jump and shriek. Still he turned back to Inui, guilelessly earnest to his sempai beneath his rough exterior.

"You have class," Inui said. "You have to go to a special music assembly, and it's a three-minute walk from here. If you don't leave now, there's a 56% probably you'll be late. Unless you run, and that's against the rules, so there's a 42% chance you wouldn't allow yourself to do so."

"Hai, sempai," Kaidoh said, skulking off.

Inui made his own way through the halls, not observing his surroundings for once, but dedicating the majority of his attention to his own matters. He didn't completely understand what had happened at home or what it meant, or what his "angle" was to be on it. There weren't any numbers to be assigned to it. So his parents wanted to be with him, now? It was probably only a fad for them. They'd get over it soon enough after trying it and realizing its lack of glamor.

Fuji wasn't in Inui's class that day, which was probably for the better, even though the two of them got on well enough. Inui entered, muttering to himself, and barely registered the brief worried look Oishi shot him. He needed a new notebook, for this current one was almost full. The Tezuka sections of it, ill-taken care of and erased and redone too many times, were becoming disorderly, a disturbing contrast to the way their very contents should be. 

He was playing tennis in his mind, tracking imaginary shots and the way he returned them. After days he'd had practice, during their following nights, the half-state between sleeping and waking, he saw tennis in his head, before he knew it having been in the middle of a game for quite a while. He wasn't someone like Echizen, wasn't really a true part of the game like that freshman's type of player, but he saw it just the same, like he saw it now, as if walls of words and numbers turned into atoms and molecules and the components of real life.

His racket fell out of his hand. Inui didn't have to pay attention to this class, so he didn't, his gaze fixed out the window. Tezuka wasn't there? Was he sick that day? No, Tezuka wasn't in Inui's view during this class, it was another class that he was. Strange that Inui would forget something like that. He pushed up his classes and pictured Tezuka there, to push his mind away from home. His racket had fallen out of his hand. 

An almost regal figure, unmoving, eyes behind glasses like stone, uncleaned, unfaceted raw diamond, and Inui had a poetic side from all the books he'd used to read, too. Hair the still-rising sun struck bronze-gold-dirt. Cuffs on sleeves loosened, the only concession to the heat that was rapidly being trapped by the glass next to him, hands and wrists newly calloused, raw from unyielding practice, archetypal.

Sometimes Inui felt so frustrated he couldn't believe it. He just held it inside, because there was no one he was really connected to, no one to whom he could speak of such things, over the past three years it had always been that way. He answered the question the teacher asked him with his mind barely on it, but forced his habitually manic smile on. Gradually, it began to rain outside, spray mist pushing in, sprinkling, touching his face. He willed thunder to roll, to scream throughout the sky, to split it open, a true psychotic grin. Because he wasn't Fuji, but he liked seeing people suffer, too.

No one could have lunch outside because of the rain. As Kikumaru whined in such an ear-splitting way, there definitely wouldn't be any tennis practice that day. Even if the weather did stop, practice would still be called off because of the puddles that were already accumulating in the courts. Inui and the other senior regulars ate in an empty classroom. Tezuka and Oishi entered late, soaked from dashing across campus. Inui was sure Tezuka had done so in an eminently dignified way, though.

Kikumaru's eyes widened. He grabbed Oishi's hands and began to rub them together, and blew on them to give them warmth, making distressed noises that his partner sighed and laughed at. Fuji pulled a towel from somewhere over Tezuka's shoulders, Taka stuttering something indecipherable to their captain as well. The corners of Inui's mouth turned upwards.

Then there was dialogue, which some of them were part of more than others. Inui didn't mind socializing with the other regulars. He liked this. Still, though, there was a tenseness today, like the rain outside was pounding onto them here where they sat. Inui knew the weather had a psychological effect on all of them, even himself. He bit into his bland sandwich and thought about tennis and competitions and tennis competitions.

Out of nowhere, Taka suddenly breathed, "All the way to nationals." Inui turned, stared at the odd, fragmented statement. Fuji, seeming to understand, smiled and repeated it in his distinctive alto, looking at Tezuka as he did. Kikumaru understood, too, jumping up, delighted. His fingers stayed intertwined with Oishi's, like they were celebrating victory together already. Kikumaru pulled a CD player from his back- thoroughly illegal in school- and pressed its on button, bright green lights snapping on in the dark classroom. He slammed one of his long fingers into the track button several times, and then exuberant J-rock abruptly poured out, filling the room. Oishi started, then relaxed and laughed with Fuji's smile.

Taka had gotten a racket from somewhere, and was excitedly pumping his arms around to the stirring beat. "OH YEAH! RALLY MY HEART! YOUTH SPIRIT, MY GOOD MAN! HEAT! I WILL DESTROY YOUR MOM!" Oddly enough, he seemed to be yelling with the beat, and the others' laughter, too.

Tezuka rose to his feet, and the others stopped, apprehensive. Then, unsmiling but not unpleasant, Tezuka shut the door.

Inui threw his head back and laughed harder than he had in days. Kikumaru grinned a Chesire grin and grabbed Fuji, pulling him up and beginning to dance to the music. Oishi got to his feet, and Kikumaru grabbed his doubles partner's wrists and pulled him to the center of their circle. Oishi gave Tezuka a salute before disappearing.

Inui knew it was simply a release of the stress that had been building over time in all of them. It was good, though. The serotonin and other mood-controlling chemicals in his brain had kicked in, sending out practically palpable impulses of happiness and relief.

He wondered why Tezuka wouldn't let himself smile even at a time like this. But wasn't that part of Seigaku's strength, too?

"VICTORY!"

"Dance, Tezuka?" Inui asked, offering a hand to his buchou and giving him the most insane smile he had.

"All the way to nationals..."

***

Afterwards, Inui realized he'd forgotten to eat his lunch, and needing the energy, shoved the food down his throat as fast as he could. A boy he'd been friends with in freshman year walked back in his view, and, stomach groaning from eating the sandwich so fast, he made his way into the boy's path. It was a fairly isolated corner of the hall, anyway.

"Nice to see you, Kakeru-kun," Inui said, voice sounding strange to him, strained in contrast to his normal voice, oddly deep in comparison to the voice that had said that name before. He now towered over Ishida.

Ishida Kakeru stopped, tilted his head up, forced onto tiptoe in order to see Inui's face. He was much smaller than Inui would have thought. "Do I know you?" Kakeru frowned. Then he reached up, took Inui's glasses off his face for a second, and cried out. "Sadaha- I mean, Inui!"

"Long time no see," Inui nodded. "What have you been doing?" Neither of them had seen the other and spoken in years.

Kakeru shrugged, fingering a piece of his light hair in a way that somewhat disturbingly reminded Inui of St. Rudolph's manager Mizuki Hajime. "I'm on the writing club. You're in the tennis club still, right?"

"Manager," said Inui. "I make health drinks now, would you like to try one? I have Aozu in my bag."

"No thanks," Kakeru said, clearly uncomfortable with the whole encounter. "I'd better get to class. Well, I'll see you around, Inui."

"It's okay," Inui said, voicing the unsaid worry that had been hovering throughout the conversation. His voice was perfectly flat and controlled. "I don't want to be friends again, if that's what you thought."

Kakeru flinched, for even if that had been what he wanted, there was a 65% probability that having his old friend say that so openly still hurt him. "What?"

"Thank you, Kakeru," said Inui.

"Inui-sempai." Kaidoh stood there, having just walked up. He'd taken the bandana Inui had seen him wearing earlier off. Inui couldn't tell if the tone of his grim voice was any more or less disgruntled than usual.

"Huh?" said Kakeru. He shrunk back at the sight of Kaidoh scowling at him. Kaidoh was taller, Inui noted. And sure had a much scarier face.

Inui smiled, rather manically, rather detached. Strange, very strange, that he'd be introducing Kaidoh to Kakeru. "Ishida Kakeru, senior, Kaidoh Kaoru, junior," he said pleasantly, pointing to each in turn.

Even someone like him might have people they knew. Anyone in the world could connect. Inui Sadahara was going to Nationals with Seigaku.

"Ssssss."

Kakeru's grip tightened oon the notebook in his hand, like Inui's, only probably used for his creative writing. Inui probably didn't notice the way Kaidoh's eyes darted to it. "Are you on the tennis team?" Kakeru asked.

"Regular," Kaidoh said. "Singles 3."

"You should go to class, too," Inui pointed out. "At this point, there's a 40% probability that all three of us will be late."

"I'll see you at practice, sempai," Kaidoh said, slithering off.

Kakeru nodded, face transparent to Inui, full of confusion, regret. Inui simply smirked at him. Have a nice life.

Inui went back to his house smiling. The tune of the song Kikumaru had put on, that outflow of stress, was playing in his head. He didn't have the photographic memory he would have liked, but there were some things he was sure he'd remember. His parents were waiting, which hadn't been in the front of his mind. His mother, standing at the side of the front door as he entered, was smiling a painfully hopeful smile. He thought he might feel sick with hope. Hope was the most bittersweet feeling in the world. To hope for something, you had to not have it.

"Dinner," his father said. "It's on the table already."

The anticipated takeout okinomiyaki, of course. Okinomiyaki was okay. He took a seat and began to eat. Food and drink made him think of the prototype of a new kind of penal tea he'd been working on. He hadn't thought about it, hadn't had any new ideas about it for a while. Ah well, there were more pressing concerns.

"Are you in any extracurriculars?" Shinobu breached the silence with. Inui breathed out. Ah, the proverbial 20 questions.

"Yes," he said. "Tennis club."

"Are you serious about it?" Yuzuriha frowned, exchanging a disapproving glance with her husband over her son's spiky head.

"Usu," he said, picturing the stoic Hyoutei giant who said that word so much, whimsically for someone who wasn't Inui. He anticipated their next words. Shinobu- "Are you sure that's appropriate?" 89%.

"Are you sure that's appropriate?" Shinobu frowned, right on cue. Inui allowed himself a brief moment of nastiness in his feelings.

"I'm not a regular," Inui said, not even lying.

"What's that mean?" Yuzuriha blinked.

"I don't play in the competition matches," said Inui.

"That's alright, then," Shinobu said after a brief moment of consideration.

"My grades are fine," Inui said, before they could ask.

Uncomfortable looks again, as if he couldn't see them. "Do you have any friends, Sadahara?"

Inui pulled his large head back, startled. "Friends?" he asked, pushing his glasses up with one hand and picking up part of the okonomiyaki with the other. She'd surprised him with that question.

"Whatever you do, you're going to need to learn to relate to people," Shinobu said, rather harshly. "And you can't really be happy without other people," he said more gently, causing Inui to shift uncomfortably, looking away from him. "Who do you have?"

Neither of them could possibly understand. What could either of them know about him? They were the ones who'd left him. But this was a dangerous situation for him. Oddly enough, the film of euphoria from before hadn't faded at all.

"I have friends," Inui said. "Seigaku no tennis."

***

"I have to go."

"Stay," Shinobu commanded. "We're not finished."

"Shouldn't you be at work?" Inui asked. "I have to be."

"Work?" Yuzuriha frowned clinically. "I didn't know you had a job. Or- where are you going?"

"Do you know the river?" Inui asked carefully. "I'm going to help a kouhai train."

"In what?" Shinobu asked. "What does he need to train for if he's not a regular?"

"He is," Inui said.

"Then why is he getting training from you?"

"I'm the manager, and I'm leaving now."

"Are you friends?" Yuzuriha called after him.

"No," Inui said to himself, voice flat. He jogged out of his house, a look at his watch telling him he was already late. He didn't want to fail at this. He didn't enjoy the idea of any of his plans being interrupted.

Kaidoh's socks and running shoes had been left at the side of the river, Kaidoh already having waded in. Nearing, Inui could hear the snap of water whipping across the air, the slap of cloth, Boomerang Snake practice. "Kaidoh," Inui sighed, reaching the edge of the river. "I'm sorry I'm late." Kaidoh merely hissed in response, something Inui wouldn't have expected.

Inui frowned. "You're using too much power again."

Kaidoh stopped his motion. "Ssssss."

"Wait to do that part of your training until after we've done more basics," Inui said. "You won't be using your Boomerang right away."

"And what will you do until then?" Kaidoh asked, making Inui frown. For doubles? He didn't answer. He wasn't entirely sure if Kaidoh knew what he was talking about.

"You're holding me back," Kaidoh growled out, wrist snapping again. "I won't let anyone hold me back."

"You can't truly get better without my direction," said Inui, eyes narrowing beneath his glasses as he watched Kaidoh.

"That's not what I meant."

Inui studied Kaidoh, disturbed, and Kaidoh hissed, "What's on your mind, Inui-sempai," sullen. For Kaidoh, Inui was the only person he couldn't just dismiss. Inui himself would have just said he actually knew the real Kaidoh, since he alone had seen both parts of him.

"I may have to stop playing tennis," Inui finally admitted, strangely enough stumbling over the words. He hadn't stuttered much since third grade.

Kaidoh stopped, turning to stare at his trainer. Somehow he must have fallen in the river before Inui came, because he was covered in droplets of water, dripping down or evaporating off his skin in the heat. His small, shifty eyes visibly changed, angry to surprised. "Do you have an injury?" Kaidoh ventured, letting the towel fall out of his hand and splash into the water, ripples pooling across the surface of the water. The sunset behind them, reflected on the waves, was very pretty, but neither of them really cared very much about beauty.

"No," Inui said. "My family's the problem now." His new family. Inui's feet remained firmly in place on the grass, glasses easing the harsh glare from the sun, keeping his eyes from burning. Through the trees, the sun was the harshest at this time, glowing out fire. Kaidoh couldn't see, he was facing away from it. He wished Kaidoh would be dazzled, too. They both understood something like power.

Kaidoh looked down, maybe upset at the prospect of his sempai disappearing, tone when he spoke more bitter than usual. "Do you even care about tennis, sempai?"

Do you even care about any of... this? That was what Inui heard. "You're assuming I think like you, Kaidoh," Inui said smoothly, truthfully. "I don't think like you, not at all. And no matter what happens, I told you I'd make you go undefeated, and I'll hold to that." He wouldn't stop Kaidoh's training in the middle; if nothing else, it wouldn't be fair to the boy.

He pushed his glasses up, then stepped into the river, shoes still on. The riverbed wasn't made of sand but mud and slime and stones, sharp even under his tennis shoes, shoes that squished, absorbing water as he moved, socks no doubt browning from the flow of dirt. He felt the light current plaster turquoise fabric to his shins, and reached out and put a hand on Kaidoh's shoulder.

Touch was strange. Kaidoh rarely even touched his own family. And now a hand raised to Kaidoh in comradery instead of anger- something startling, certainly. That gave Inui power over him, over what his kouhai would decide this was. This was a way to reach Kaidoh, too. He could hold Kaidoh's thoughts in his hand, through a broad shoulder, lean, smooth muscles shaking from fatigue and gentleness. Kaidoh squirmed under his hand, skin slick with sweat and sand-water, slime, but didn't make Inui let go.

"You shouldn't give up on anything," Kaidoh hissed, turning back to Inui. "Ever." His eyes were fierce now, and Inui was startled for a second. Was that right, that he couldn't give up yet? "If I'm stuck with you, sempai, at least be a worthwhile partner. I'm not the only person who can win."

Then Kaidoh shrugged off Inui's hand, looked back down again and hissed, presumably embarrassed, a hot blush starting to burn on his cheeks.

Did Kaidoh mean to not give up on fighting with tennis? Or to not give up on reaching his family, too? Or both? Did it matter?

"Let's go running," Inui said, and decided they shouldn't talk any more that night.

***

Kaidoh knew. He didn't know the details, but he knew what was going on. At least the comforting thought was there that Kaidoh sure wouldn't tell anyone. Inui was positive of that fact. He returned to his house, tired from his own exertions, and met his parents there, white shirt and sweatpants he still hadn't changed out of after practice soaked with sweat. He was getting complacent. That wasn't good. He had to remember the goal he had ahead of him. As if he could forget it, but still...

He walked towards the stairs, but then his father had pressed a glass of ice water into his hand. "It's good you're training hard," Shinobu said. Yuzuriha, on the phone with someone Inui assumed was a supplier for the company, began to speak quickly into the receiver, an oppressively knowledgeable tone she rarely used with her son.

"It's not hard enough," Inui said, and, glass of water in his hand, bowed to his father, the strange urge to do so inexplicable but impossible to ignore. Shinobu nodded back.

"I saw your test," Shinobu said, gesturing to the table Inui had left it on. Mathematics. Straight 100, plus a bonus. "Good job."

"Ganbatte yo, right?" Inui said, raising his eyebrows at his father, then headed up the stairs. He needed to do some work on the computer. That, and he needed to do some weights, too.

Inui awoke the next morning with a new training plan envisioned already, Tezuka's face looming when he closed his eyes, Kaidoh's words like data in his mind. What did it mean, that he felt invigorated, motivated suddenly? What had changed about him? Was it Kaidoh? His parents? Just the external and internal factors involved with getting older? But Kaidoh had given him a message. He couldn't just focus on others. Inui had to hone himself as well.

***

Tennis practice that afternoon was very different than usual for Inui. His parents were watching it from outside the courts. He'd changed in the locker room, the first person there aside from Tezuka and Oishi, who were already out on the courts. He'd presented his variations on the training schedule to Ryuuzaki, who had been passing by, then watched her leave, going back to her office to work and to observe from there. Eventually more people had arrived, mostly at the same time, right at the start of practice. Training had started as usual, but then Inui, gaze far away, saw something most unusual. His parents, both in business suits, were walking up.

Kaidoh, also removed from the rest of the regulars as he had been during Oishi's address, noticed them, too, and pointed it out to Tezuka. Tezuka shook it off without a care. The murmurs coming from the other students showed them divided between them being reporters and scouts from another school. Inui knew better. But he would do practice as usual. He had to.

He took notes and commented, throwing out instructions to the freshmen as they practiced serving form. The juniors and seniors were having turns challenging the regulars, the same as Inui had planned. It was the end of the week, after all. Currently, Echizen was wiping the court with Arai. No real surprise there. The regulars, against normal form, seemed to be cheering for Arai against Echizen, rooting for the underdog, if Kikumaru's loud squeals were any indication. Inui forced himself to keep his eyes on Echizen's twist serve instead of his parents, heads bent towards each other in conversation as they watched him and only him.

"Game and match, Echizen. Six games to love."

Inui could tell Tezuka had been watching the match as well. He knew of Tezuka's fierce interest in Echizen. When he'd realized it, he may have even been jealous of it. But he wasn't a student like Echizen, anyway. He was a teacher.

He wondered what his parents thought of their talented freshman. They probably didn't care. 80% probability. That might even make their opinion of the tennis club worse.

Arisugawa, a quiet senior, had challenged Fuji. Inui sighed, wishing someone else was playing. Fuji wouldn't use any strength anyway. Knowing the tensai, he might just let the boy win for the fun of it. But no, beating Fuji was generally a privilege reserved for Tezuka, no matter the little one's careless ways.

He couldn't help it, he looked at his parents. Shinobu was whispering something to Yuzuriha that made her giggle, toss her hair. Inui wished his parents could be cold and scientific only.

Kaidoh made his way to Inui's side. Inui, attention still focused elsewhere, heard his kouhai ask, "Who are they?" Kaidoh had assumed Inui would know, of course. And he was correct this time, as he probably would be the next. He idly wondered what Kaidoh thought of him, then he remembered that he already knew.

"My parents," he admitted, light glinting off his glasses softly. It was alright to let Kaidoh know this, since he already knew the rest.

Kaidoh stared at Inui for a second, expression confused, then he stalked away from Inui without a word. It took Inui a few seconds to realize Kaidoh was going to talk to his parents. Inui hurried after him, surprised and dismayed at it.

"Game, Fuji. 3 games to love."

Apparently, Inui thought, without looking, Fuji was toying with Arisugawa, then, instead of just ending it as Echizen had. But then again, Echizen and Arai had always had a bit of a score between them, unlike the current match pair. And that was not what he should have been analyzing at that moment.

Kaidoh exited the courts, stopped in front of Inui's parents. He bowed to them, coughing to get their attention. "Excuse me," he said formally. "I am Kaidoh Kaoru."

Shinobu and Yuzuriha turned. Inui could see both of their eyes- it was easy to follow where they were looking, since neither wore glasses- both of their eyes had fixated on the Seigaku on Kaidoh's regular jacket. "Nice to meet you," Yuzuriha said. She looked at Inui, and Inui didn't look back.

"Do you have some business with us?" Shinobu frowned.

"Do you intend to remove Inui-sempai from this club?" Kaidoh asked bluntly, stance, manner, changing. He'd gone back to the Snake without even thinking about it.

"No," Yuzuriha said. "Physical exercise helps keep the body and mind healthy, though he doesn't seem to be doing anything today." Shinobu frowned again, then nodded his agreement slowly. Inui felt as if he wasn't there, like he was frozen in place behind them, invisible.

"Good," Kaidoh said in his low voice, and hissed loudly. Both Shinobu and Yuzuriha started, staring. Kaidoh's arms had slipped down, danging between his crouched legs. "He's my doubles partner."

***

Over two times Kaidoh's training schedule. Inui could handle it. And he didn't care what his parents thought of it. If possible, they wouldn't even know. Because he would defeat Tezuka. Until he did that, there was no way he would ever move on from this world of Seigaku's tennis, no matter how much his parents wanted him to. He wasn't ready for adulthood yet.

He wasn't sure what was going on in their minds, which was frustrating. Their actions had been inconsistent since their arrival, their intentions foggy to his perception. He couldn't quite see them as the enemy, not when they smiled at him when he came home, or corrected his homework the few times he made mistakes. "Evil" wasn't a concept he understood, not even for rivals schools, and evil didn't press a cold towel to his hot forehead after weight training, or pack his bento, or converse with him about politics. A rival wasn't someone who gave him what he'd secretly cried for when he was younger, what he'd prayed for in grade school, still small. Money existed as always, a bond, too.

Inui tried to monitor their work, and found it the same as it had always been, as far as he knew. And yet they were very different people than he'd last known them as. What had changed them? What was happening this year? What was happiness, anyway, or closeness, or warmth? Friends and family, what did they mean to Inui? He knew they were geniuses, much more intelligent, far-seeing than he was. They just weren't as obvious about it as he was.

Inui thought about nothing but Tezuka for a whole day, through class, weights, practice, home, training, Kaidoh, nothing but Tezuka. There was something he hadn't been seeing, that he'd been searching for three years and never found, some fact that had been eluding him. When he was little he'd constantly wished for the ability to read minds, and he still couldn't do that. He really knew nothing of what Tezuka felt at all, where his strength came from. Probably just being himself.

Where could he find that?

Over two times Kaidoh's training schedule, and just once, having pushed himself much harder than he had foreseen, losing control over his mind for once, he found himself collapsing in his parents' arms, feeling an inexplicable feeling of being surrounded by support and warm and just simply something besides himself.

***

One day a few months ago, Inui had been working with Kaidoh separately from the rest of the regulars, but on stamina training, not technique or combination like he was now. They'd still always met at the river, a constant Inui found comforting. He'd been late for some reason, perhaps the odd attempted conversation with Echizen, and had been coming down the hill. He'd seen something interesting at that time.

A stray cat had wandered past, then walked back, coming up to where Kaidoh was, seemingly awaiting Kaidoh like Kaidoh awaited Inui. Inui watched, perhaps feeling a bit sorry for the cat, anticipating an angry yell or something like that from Kaidoh and the cat's hasty running retreat. He was surprised to see Kaidoh respond very differently. He reacted as if scalded, looking around carefully to see if anyone was there. He hadn't noticed Inui standing there above.

Kneeling down, Kaidoh reached out tentatively and petted the darkly-colored cat, long fingers stroking its raggedly hair, exploring through its back and head and behind its ears. The cat purred, rubbing its face against Kaidoh's leg and hand. Kaidoh sat down next to it, and the cat scrambled up onto the boy's lap, surprising the normally fearsome player into falling over.

It mewed almost inquisitively, then purred again as Kaidoh relaxed beneath its weight. Then as Inui watched, unbeknownst to his kouhai, Kaidoh chuckled, and did something Inui hadn't ever seen him do before- really, truly smile.

Inui remembered gentleness in the club room Saturday afternoon, alone, facing Kaidoh's K-labeled racket, no doubt left accidently. He'd probably ran out with Momoshiro, the two of them in the throes of some quarrel. And there it was. Inui picked it up, weighed it, traced the length of rope tied around the bottom of the grip.

Inui didn't know what it was. Kaidoh could have told him its origin, if so inclined. Kaidoh's little brother Hazue, his smile a bit less weird than usual, had tied it there, a young boy's necklace removed directly off his neck where he'd been wearing it. A custom for luck he'd read about somewhere, Hazue had insisted on keeping it there on his brother's racket for the upcoming tournaments. Kaidoh had growled and threatened about it, but hadn't taken it off.

Inui didn't know any of that, and it might or might not have meant anything to him if he had. He unraveled the decoration, held it in his hand. Then he tied it around his wrist, like a bracelet. He liked it.

***

Inui's parents wanted him to get contact lenses. They wanted him to look more like the other kids at Seigaku. They wanted to be able to see his eyes. They wanted him to look handsome so he could get a girlfriend. That was basically the impression he got from the announcement they made that night at dinner to him. He'd never actually considered getting contact lenses before. He'd always assumed that there wasn't contact lenses powerful enough for him, anyway, but apparently that wasn't true. His parents would know.

Inui felt vaguely sick, suddenly, but he still agreed. Shinobu told him he'd set up an appointment for tomorrow. He wouldn't go to school, but would go to the eye doctor instead, and when he left, he wouldn't need to wear glasses anymore.

He had trouble getting to sleep that night. He didn't know why his mind was so much more charged up than usual. He decided he was worried. Finally he managed to sleep, body shutting down from sheer exhaustion. He woke up early that morning, but found himself unable to focus on the data files he kept on his computer. He read a book instead, some old collection of haiku he'd liked when he was in grade school.

Finally, Inui was called down for breakfast. He ate with his parents, as had become the norm by now. The food they had made wasn't very good at all. He didn't comment on it, though. When they were all finished, Shinobu looked at his watch and declared it time to go. Inui got into the backseat of his father's car, and they drove out.

***

Inui couldn't feel the contact lenses, even though he thought he'd be able to. He had rarely ever noticed his glasses after the first few months with them, but he felt the constant lack of them the moment he stepped out of the doctor's room. The sunlight was bright, cutting through the wet lenses he couldn't feel there embedded in his eyes, and making him wince.

He could see fine without glasses. It was very strange. He couldn't describe it very well, but he knew it was very strange. He'd almost forgotten what his eyes actually looked like, having not seen them clearly in many years. He'd seen them in the mirror at the doctor's when he'd put the contacts in for the first time.

They weren't strikingly colored like Fuji's or even Echizen's. They were normal black, and large, darker than his hair, the spots he'd always seen as dark holes in his face with his blurry eyesight before now clear. He could see himself reflected clearly in his eyes, like black holes with the insides the same as the outside. He could see his confusion in his face now clearly with them unblocked, every nuance of what he felt apparent. He didn't know if he was attractive without his glasses or not. He just looked odd to himself, like there were alien things on his head, bulging out, eating it. He hardly recognized himself, and yet-

He went to Seigaku, too late for the end of classes but in time for practice. He was slightly tardy, the only one in the locker room when he entered. When he changed, pulling his uniform shirt off, there weren't glasses blocking its way, no glasses knocked askew that he had to fix. He pulled his T-shirt on. The colors were too bright, even his white shirt, his sunlight-lacking pale skin.

He exited the room, and took the few steps to the courts. Practice had started already, voices yelling, balls flying. But it all stopped when he entered. His gaze swept the court, the alien, and he could see them staring at him, shocked. The freshman trio, frozen comically in the motions of stretching out. A group of juniors he didn't know, arms falling from the strokes of the racket they'd been executing. Momoshiro's hand, rustling Echizen's hair, falling off, turning with his kouhai, both in amazement.

Fuji and Kikumaru, test discussion they'd been having coming to an abrupt end, Fuji's eyes opening. Taka's burning serve, cut off in mid-swing, dribbling down to the concrete, loud jeers silenced. Oishi, presenting a chart to Tezuka, letting out a soft gasp of astonishment, a harsh contrast to the other's unchanging stony silence. Kaidoh's small viper eyes impossibly wide, something impossible to take in. Finally Tezuka's harsh yell spurred everyone back to work.

Inui walked off and fell down onto the bench, head down, staring into his knees, quiet. He stayed that way for the rest of the practice, and waited until everyone had left the court before leaving himself. He didn't go into the locker room to change, only went home.

Sitting on his bed, Inui stared at his knees again. He shifted his wrist, and the rope tied around it shifted with it. His glasses were an uncomfortable weight against his side where he had placed them, ends cutting into his leg.

He reached up and removed the contact lenses from his eyes, fumbling a bit at the unfamiliar task. He left them fall limply from his hands, like a racket knocked away.

Exactly 1.5 minutes later, two contact lenses were ground to dust under a tennis shoe.

***

Tsukinukeru sora ni

Hitomi wo tokashite

Koko kara hajimaru

Afuredasu jishin ni michite iku

Semarikuru toki karamitsuku kokyou

Tsukanoma wo kanjitara atarashii sekai he

I say you stay ari no mama

Kodoku sae mo daite

Keep your style keep your mind break it out

I'll stay with you doko made mo habataite yukou

Ashita wo tsukamu hi made

Sorezore no emotion...

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Variable 2

Pairings- Gen, InuKai, InuiTezuka, etc.

Disclaimer- PoT is not mine.

Author's Notes- Named after the ending song. I had thought Keep Your Style was a one-shot, but... I can't be finished with Inui yet, can I? I'd be betraying my InuKai roots! Definition from dictionary.com. As for Inui's name, it's Sadahara in the subs I watch, so I'm gonna write it as Sadahara, I guess, sorry. And Onee-sama means older sister- very respectful! I have an older sister, and that's what I call her, too! :-) Spoilers to episode 52. And yes, I now realize the timeline is more than a bit messed with. Sorry... the story's more interesting that way, anyway, so...

First person cut-ins are all from Seigaku regulars, and I'm pretty sure who they are needs little explanation. It's just a stylistic thing, it's whatever.

Dedicated to the author Monnie, for her InuKai story Sesshoku, and her abundance of wonderful Hyoutei goodness. Your ToriShishi does more for me than you could know.

***

Cognition-

1. The mental process of knowing, including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.

2. The psychological result of perception and learning and reasoning.

3. To become acquainted with, to know.

4. That which is known.

***

Inui Leiko stood at the door. "You broke them."

"Onee-sama?" Inui frowned. "Why are you home, Onee-sama?"

"We called her," Shinobu said, emerging from his home office to face his son.

"The one pair of contact lenses wasn't expensive at all," Inui pointed out, refraining from quoting the price as he normally would have.

"That's not the point," Yuzuriha said. Inui did know perfectly well "that" wasn't why they were worried or angry or anything like that. Of course the lenses' price wasn't the point. He loved the glasses perched on his nose.

Inui Leiko tugged on the skirt of her plaid uniform. "Why don't you give Sadahara and me a second?"

Their parents walked out, and Inui turned to Leiko, glasses on his face more apparent than ever. "The contacts didn't suit me," Inui said, voice almost frustrated before his prodigal sibling- but Leiko laughed, and the tension dissolved.

She walked forward and grabbed her taller brother, crushing him against her soft chest. Inui raised a leaned-down eyebrow around out-turned stomach and let himself smile. "Okaeri nasai, Onee-sama."

She let go of him, and said, "Okay," leaning in, tone of her voice changing to conspiratorial. "What the hell is up with Tou-san and Kaa-san? Are they on crack or something?"

"I think it's a phase," Inui said, and wasn't sure if his own words were correct. "But it's not as terrible as you might think. I haven't been able to see them as people for a long time, though, only representative images, if you well..." Leiko rolled her eyes. "I can barely see them. I don't know what it would be like to be close to someone now."

She groaned dramatically, placing a hand over her forehead. "You can 'see me', right? Sadahara, you know how you get when you start analyzing yourself. You're starting to sound incoherent. I didn't come because of the parental intervention, anyway, you know."

Inui absently noted she still stuttered a bit every so often. She gained some more weight, and her hair was styled a different way. "Why did you come to visit, then? You never do."

Leiko had gone to a boarding high school in the Tokyo suburbs for the past three years. She and her brother had kept in touch by email, but- "You stopped mailing. One message you never replied to, and it stopped."

"I've been busy," Inui said truthfully. "Gomen, Onee-sama. I suppose I just missed it somehow."

"I'll be graduating from high school in not too long, Sadahara," Leiko whined, voice worried. "You almost missed my birthday."

"I really do feel remorse right now," Inui said.

Leiko frowned. "Stop acting like such a robot. I always wondered why you did that when I visited."

"All three times," Inui said, raising his eyebrow again, rising the left one with it this time.

Leiko sort of heh-heh-ed embarrassedly, nervously changing the subject. "You're still as into tennis, right? You haven't given that up?"

Inui nodded. "I lost my regular spot, but I'll have it back very soon. I'm sure of it."

"Do you ever talk to Renji? Renji was cute," Leiko fished.

"Renji attends Rikkai."

"How's That Person?" Leiko asked, arms crossed beneath her expansive chest. Her short hair, unruly like his, shook as she tossed her head. Her mannerisms and body language had undergone more than a little change since the last time Inui had seen her.

"That person?" Inui asked, not even bothering to place the expected innocence in his tone that a question like that should have warranted.

"You know who I mean," Leiko said impatiently, though once again trying for conspiratorial as she spoke.

"Still without a boyfriend, Onee-sama?" Inui said, grinning. "Just because you don't have one, you have to live your romantic life through me. Posthumously, Onee-sama?" She squealed like a rather younger girl at that last remark and stomped his foot into the carpet. Inui groaned.

"Ow... And what are you going to do living with our parents again, especially if you're going to stay for the whole week? Your vacation... Do you still want them dead?"

"I think you've gotten too smart for me, Sada," Leiko just said.

After a while, they were called to dinner. Leiko looked so much more awkward at dinner, that bizarre pretension of normality, than her little brother did. Inui thought to himself, wondering about it. He hadn't come to rely on this new setup, had he?

"It's great to have the four of us together," Yuzuriha said, near the end of the meal, and that comment alone made Leiko, almost 17, stomp off, food only half done.

"It's a very well-prepared meal," Inui said, tone calculated, words and voice just a certain way, and he watched his two deceptively intelligent, newly earnest parents cringe.

Keep Your Style

Cognition

Starbrigid

"That Person is the same as always," Inui said. "I'll beat him when I get back on the regulars, Onee-sama."

"For the family honor?" she quipped weakly. "My kid brother is so weird."

"Hai," Inui said. "Tomorrow, come to school with me."

"Cool," Leiko agreed, careless. "I will."

"I'll be leaving now," Inui said.

Leiko glared at him. "Oh, that's nice."

"It's not like that," Inui said, in a rather good mood at the moment, actually, on the whole. "I just have a new training schedule. You could come running with me if you wanted."

"Training to beat That Person?"

"Not for the most part," Inui said. "Even though you've taken the one thing I wrote so out of proportion, I'm not your obsessed tragic hero. Tezuka's not a hubris. He's really nothing in the main."

"Tezuka?" Leiko said immediately, pouncing on the name as he'd expected she would.

"If you're good, I'll introduce you to him, Onee-sama," Inui smirked. "But I'd warn you, my honored sempai, that you may be, as the Americans say, barking up the wrong tree."

Leiko said it with him, sarcastic as always, "There is no tree."

"Do you want to come running with me?" Inui asked. He laughed inwardly at that. He knew there was a pretty good 69% chance she wouldn't, on account of her being physically unfit and hating exercise. She certainly wouldn't want to run miles or lift heavy weights.

"Eh- no thanks," she said, blanching. Inui smirked.

The trouble with euphoria in general, Inui thought, pulling his blue workout suit on, was that there wasn't much room for thought within it. Neither could something like hysteria think. His sister, though she rather made him happy, made him feel smart, too.

He knew Leiko herself wasn't as smart as him, or indeed very specifically talented at all. She was rather alienated from a good deal of people, still not focused on any sort of activities. But to Inui she predated analysis, much like his parents did, and she was Onee-sama still to him. He certainly didn't choose to do anything he didn't have to that he disliked.

Inui normally didn't like to think much about himself. He had come to understand himself thoroughly a long time ago, and things outside him, other people, usually interested him far much more. He'd once thought of his endeavors perhaps being defined by his general lack of ego, lack of need for recognition, smaller amount of self-interest, and yet was he ever interested in doing things for anyone but Inui Sadahara? He burst out running, thinking of Kaidoh, perhaps, as he touched the bracelet, realizing what his kouhai might have shown to him. Hey, Onee-sama, he thought. This is for myself.

He stopped, pulled out his cell phone, and dialed Fuji's number, stored in his memory like all the other regulars' numbers. Fuji answered, not his sister, probably out with friends, and of course not his brother, long-gone to St. Rudolph's.

"Fuji," Inui said into the receiver.

"Huh?" Fuji said. "Inui?" Inui could easily picture that small, endearing expression of puzzlement appearing on Fuji's face, the shifting of a smile underneath covered dark eyes.

"Fuji," Inui said. "When your brother Yuuta comes home, what do you do to welcome him?"

Inui's relationship with Leiko was of no importance to him, not a consideration at all, unlike Fuji's own brother to him, something that Inui may have seen as the prodigy's weakness. But it appealed to Inui, to act like this, his slightly odd sense of humor.

Fuji's smile at the other end could have shown sweetness or annoyance or both. The reply came a bit later than it would have for another question. "It doesn't really matter, does it, Inui?" Fuji didn't ask why Inui had said that. He probably didn't care very much.

What did Fuji care about aside his brother? Inui had sometimes wondered if Fuji might care about Tezuka or something, the only one the gentle boy let beat him at tennis all the time, the only one who in any case could. He might or might not have seen if Fuji felt something. It might happen, might not. Who could know Fuji Syusuke's mind? It doesn't really matter, does it, Inui?

Thoughts preceded dialogue. Inui couldn't make assumptions. He felt amused, meanly so. This was funny. "You mean it doesn't matter what you tell me, or it doesn't matter what you do, because it won't make any different to him?"

Fuji laughed, and Inui enjoyed its unusual windy sound. "That's funny, Inui, but I had just been about to leave. Good luck."

"Good luck, huh?" Click.

Inui really enjoyed seeing Kaidoh. He had always sort of liked Kaidoh's presence, perhaps identified with the dark loner a bit in an odd way, and now he was coming to understand his kouhai even more, shaping the data written in his notebook. Kaidoh was his partner because he'd chosen him, and the other boy might even be his friend. A little bit more, if not a terrible amount more, than the other regulars, that was.

Kaidoh was brought up associations in his mind, Kaidoh facing his pretty, awful old friend Kakeru, of Kaidoh meeting his gaze one day in Inui's second year, the freshman's presence at that time, because that made Inui think of Kaidoh made him keep thinking of Fuji the meaningless.

What would that gift be, to be able to become high on life, to live in the way that everything was hiddenly incredible to you and things came to you, instead of you having to look?

"Kaidoh," Inui said. "Thank you for all your hard work."

"How long have you been running?" Kaidoh asked, taking in the sweat on Inui's brow, dripping down his face and beneath his glasses.

"A while," Inui said.

"Have you increased your training schedule?" Kaidoh stared, maybe hurt.

"Yes," Inui said. Odd, unusual for Kaidoh to want to talk. "We should train now."

That day, Inui did all of Kaidoh's very excessive training with him, and practiced after he'd walked Kaidoh home.

When he stood back at the river, hauling his body's weight up and down for push-ups, drops of water spraying across his sight showed through to a darkening sky. He remembered Kaidoh's face by dusk and the glow of streetlights, harsh and strong, and heartrendingly sweet. The taste in his mouth he'd imagined remained, like sweat and orange sunset.

Leiko said goodnight to him that night, like he was her son or something, or so she said jokingly, rather uncomfortable at the realization. Inui's father, who'd been watching from the doorway, came in and patted Inui on the shoulder where he lay. "Ii data," Inui mumbled into his pillow and smiled at his father.

"I'd be unhappy if you left, too."

***

At the beginning of Inui's second year, he'd had a crush on Fuji Syusuke. That was about the time he'd really started collecting data very seriously, and Fuji was the only person on the entire team he couldn't get anything real on. It was like Fuji was some sort of hole in the fabric of reality, glowing around a set of numbers, a glitch in the Matrix, that movie. Inui had once entertained the idea that Fuji was the one person like him.

He'd spent a month or a week or so with that "crush" on the tensai, cultivating it inside him where he kept it so carefully hidden. Tezuka wasn't exactly like that, had always meant something different to him than those shallow, transient feelings. Tezuka meant something he couldn't quite describe, something he'd never read a satisfactory characterization of- nothing at all. But Fuji, his supposed anti-self, had held a place in Inui that Inui now loathed. It was to be expected, really, all of it was, easily trackable. 

13-year-old Inui had his first sex dream about Fuji Syusuke, its subject, its center. Shining with the flicker of candlelight, crawling towards him in the dark, striking eyes open, bringing the antithesis of all he was and believed, his calculation, control... Fuji had come.

Some sort of wind had been howling around them, sending Fuji's soft, light tendrils of hair spinning around his heart-shaped face. The dark, heavy air had been clouded with mist, droplets of rain falling onto the sleeves of Fuji's Seigaku jacket, over dark eyelashes, crystal trails of delicate glass, startlingly oh-so-close.

Fuji had been whispering something, voice just as penetrating as the wind, as warmth. Sadahara sat there dumbly, frozen, spellbound. "Inui," Fuji said, and smiled.

Fuji's jacket, half-zipped over his jersey, trailed open, pushed off with long, slender fingers. Inui stared, and the other boy reached out, T-shirt going the jacket's way as Fuji grabbed onto Inui and Inui shattered into a thousand million pieces.

Inui's first kiss had been in fever dreams, everything that defined him melting away, to that person he didn't even know, not-shivering around him in the vacuum of emptiness, that hurtfully burning cold. The curve of best fit, quadratic, parabola, endless stretch of a hand, a smirk. Wetness, a scream, senses exploding, pleasure, pain, a cry.

Wake up hurting, shaking, damp, unsatisfied. Tennis practice that day, Inui met Fuji's eyes, opened for once, and look, he found cognition at last. Fuji could do anything he wanted with Inui, own him, hurt him, destroy him, had anything he wanted in his grasp, so easily. Fuji would never do anything like that, wasn't really that kind of person, but if he wanted to, the prodigy could and would break him, oh so easily.

He'd gone through the rest of practice disoriented, disturbed, unsure of himself for once. He'd somehow ended up staring at one of the freshman, whose name he'd actually known.

How could he not have known that freshman's name, though- for along with his enemy and friend Momoshiro, Kaidoh Kaoru was the only new member with any promise, the two amazingly driven again each other- how could he not have known someone like Kaidoh? His kouhai had an interesting personality, strange, oppressive, wearing distinctive bandanas and hissing, causing even older students to shy out of his way. He was driven, prideful, and unswervingly respectful. Snakelike Kaidoh turned and looked at Inui, too, and Inui realized something then, which he immediately forgot.

That was the day he got over Fuji Syusuke, who was just a simple acquaintance-ally to him now, and it was so much better that way.

***

Inui and Leiko walked to school early, Leiko chattering away about her high school friends. Inui thought about his new data and said "Good data," every now and then, so his sister thought he found what she was saying at least marginally interesting. He knew she was just trying to impress him, anyway, which was completely, fundamentally pointless. She was soon interrupted, however, by a voice much louder than her own, an earsplitting squeal sounding out into the early morning.

"Iiiiiiiinuuuuuuuuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" Kikumaru ran up and glomped Leiko's brother, apparently looking to his nearest available friend for comfort. "My sister used all my toothpaste again!"

Inui sighed, let Kikumaru drape his light little body all over him, just the way the cat-boy did with everyone else. His sister blinked, stared at her brother's friend. "Huh? Cute..."

"Nya nya?" Kikumaru turned, surprised. "Who are you sashi-datchi?"

"Leiko-chan," she smiled.

"I'm Eiji," he said, bounding forward and staring at her St. Katherine's uniform questioningly. Then he arrived at what was, for Kikumaru at least, the obvious conclusion. "WAH! Are you Inui's girlfriend?"

"She's my sister, visiting from out of town," Inui said placidly.

"Eiji!" they heard someone cry, and then Oishi ran up, panting slightly. "I was looking for you."

Kikumaru flung himself on Oishi. "Mou! Oishi! My sister used my toothpaste and now weird Inui's sister is here! It's weird! I want my toothpaste! Oishi, can you lend me some money? Oishi, I'm worried about our new doubles formation! O-i-shi!"

"Seigaku no Golden Pair," Inui said, grinning scarily at his sister's reaction. He really liked his life. "Our national-level Doubles 1."

"We're the best!" Kikumaru said brightly.

"And we're late," Oishi sighed.

"WHA? Why didn't you tell me!" Kikumaru sped away, wailing. Oishi sighed, recognizing the futility of it all, just hoping Fuji would keep the teacher from giving his partner yet another tardy.

Inui, however, thought he was going to enjoy this. Throughout the day, he looked out for the regulars and pointed out them out to Leiko. He wanted her to see his world, his friends, to meet them face to face. He might have felt proud to be a part of something like this.

Leiko met the rest of the senior regulars at lunch that day, bowing formally after her brother's introduction in a ridiculous way. Tezuka nodded to her, acknowledging her presence, but didn't say anything. Kikumaru and Oishi smiled and greeted her for the second time, Oishi hastily advising her to watch out for her little brother's health, which Inui himself sighed at but did not protest. Kawamura introduced himself to Leiko before Inui could do the honors, remarking that he reminded him of someone- Akutsu Jin's mother, Inui assumed. Fuji gave her his sweetest smile and leaned over to kiss her hand, making Kikumaru shriek and giggle and Leiko gasp.

"It's rare to see such a pretty girl these days," Fuji said gracefully.

Leiko smiled back, taking on a jovial sharpness. "Thanks, but what about you?"

"Onee-sama..." Inui said tightly, sounding a bit panicked despite himself.

Everyone besides Tezuka gaped, but Fuji himself just laughed. "Having someone new always makes things more interesting, doesn't it? It's nice to see you share more with your brother than looks."

"You're..." she trailed off, staring at Fuji. She felt very special today.

"Fuji, Singles 2," Inui said. Leiko looked surprised at that last detail, probably startled that such a small, non-threatening looking guy could have that slot, but about 80% of people did seem to have that reaction upon finding out if they didn't know Fuji, didn't they?

There was a pause, and then, "Tezuka desu," Tezuka finally said in turn, causing Leiko to shriek. Inui winced.

"T-Tezuka? You're Tezuka? Wow!" Leiko cried.

"See, Eiji, I told you all the girls like Tezuka," Oishi laughed, smiling.

"Oh? You've heard a lot about Tezuka, then?" Fuji asked innocently. "Does Inui talk about our buchou a lot?"

"No," Leiko said quickly. "I just heard that Tezuka-san plays tennis really well, that's all."

"Captain and Singles 1," Inui said, following the format. He did take pleasure in knowing things, even if they were easy, and others knew them also.

After that scene, he wondered if his sister truly registered meeting anyone else, so stunned just by the concept of Tezuka. She literally ran into Echizen and Momoshiro after lunch. The two boys had been running through the halls, Echizen trying to reclaim the books Momo had stolen from him. Momo's loud, playful taunts and Echizen's exasperated half-laughs stopped when the three collided and the impact slammed them to the ground.

Inui appeared suddenly behind where Momoshiro was sprawled, startling the younger boy severely, causing him to jump up haphazardly. Echizen pointed at Momoshiro's comic expression and began to snicker, not even acknowledging the girl's presence, much less preparing for an apology. "Mada mada dane," he said, very predictably.

"Shut up, Echizen! And don't DO that, Inui-sempai!" Momo yelled, incensed. He turned to Leiko. "Eh, sorry," he said sheepishly, demeanor changing, offering a hand to pull her up.

Echizen almost pouted, then snagged Momo's hand and pulled his own small body up in Leiko's place. "Thanks," he grinned.

"Hey!" Momo cried, and Echizen darted off, having reclaimed his books from Momo a long time ago, and successfully repossessed Momoshiro's own as well. Momo raced off after him, yelling more and barely avoiding knocking down other people in his pursuit, forgetting his victim easily. There was almost a 100% chance they'd both be late to their next classes.

"Singles 3, Echizen Ryoma, and Singles 3 also, Momoshiro Takeshi," Inui said, and loved his life.

***

Inui sometimes liked long tests, but at other times he hated them quite a bit. There were always external factors affecting his performance on such things, like the state of his body, the amount of awareness he had, his chemically-bound emotional state, and indeed simply enough just how much he knew on the topic. He was the master of the intellectual, tests not the same as his beloved data and experiments, but close enough, in their same category, that they supposedly became and indeed were his jurisdiction. A test in the English on the last period of the day that he hadn't remembered, and Inui heaved a long sigh.

Trying to remember the word needed and failing, Inui did know that this wasn't his specific specialty, and just that subject and adjective together were redundant, weren't they? Even if he pretended not to be that way, everyone did have some areas they excelled in, and the rest became comparatively deficient. He knew this, but, pencil doodling an angular geometric pattern in the examination's margin, the thought of Kaidoh's stubborn persistence, even to the point of hurt, in the boy's own chosen vehicle of the body, made Inui strain his own medium of the mind. He wasn't used to having to ache for something.

He wanted to bring home another 100 to his genius parents, and to see the jealousy on Leiko's face, and to not remark on it but jot it down for future use. He wished for that beginning for his new set of data, this one on his family.

Kaidoh couldn't come to practice that day, having to retake a major test. It was strange, Inui thought, that Kaidoh and Leiko had never met. Did that mean something, the event being held off, did that mean that its eventual occurrence would be that many times more meaningful? Was it all being built up to some sort of unwieldy climax?

Inui knew dramatics. He knew that time would be the ranking matches for the regulars at the end of the month. And he knew who would be in his ranking block, so maybe what he would get on that English test wasn't terribly important. Neither Leiko or Kaidoh would like each other.

***

"So tell me about who you like," Inui said, leaning toward Leiko with his manic grin to end all manic grins.

"What if I don't wanna?" Leiko whined, facing her little brother defiantly. Their parents, scurrying past to converse with each other and serve their children snacks, didn't comment.

Inui, sitting in T-shirt and sweatpants in preparation for his training later, a sharp contrast to Leiko's long white nightgown, took on a bit of a threatening air, whipping out a bubbling concoction from approximately nowhere. "Then you get the honor of being the first to try Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Remix- Now in Orange!"

Shinobu and Yuzuriha yelled out various panicked variations of "Don't do it, Leiko-chan! You have so much to live for!" The not-very-orange liquid made ominous sounds as it let off heat, almost sounding like it was hissing. The two scientist-businessmen had both made the mistake of trying some of Inui's concoctions a few days before, and knew the ridiculous danger of them firsthand.

"How bad is it?" Leiko stared at her brother's strange experiment in fascination.

"You won't believe it," Shinobu said with the utmost solemnity, and Leiko laughed a while before she realized whose joke she was laughing at.

Inui wrote the phrase "Full circle" on the page of his notebook and contemplated what it meant. Leiko ended up confessing her undying love for some popular boy in her class, escaping, sadly enough, Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Orange Remix. Yaru jan, Onee-sama. But her time would come... an ominous smile...

Even when he was jogging out of the house, making his way to the gym for extra training, Inui found his thoughts remaining at his house. He wondered what was happening there with Leiko and his parents. Somehow, the result was important to him. Was hate what he saw in the picture? 32% probability Leiko had already stormed far, far away from them.

***

"Leiko-chan, how do you think Sadahara's doing these days?" Yuzuriha asked, and fervently hoped her only daughter wouldn't just leave.

The three of them could all hear the slight grunts of exertion as Inui lifted weights next door, set after set worth. With the amount he'd been lifting weights over the past few days, though, even this probably wasn't too much yet. Inui kept track of those things, after all. Shinobu, who rarely attended the gym he paid a good deal to keep a membership at, felt rather guilty. He pushed that thought away, though, because that wasn't what they were talking about at all.

Sitting in Leiko's long-empty room, Leiko on the bed, Shinobu and Yuzuriha in dusty chairs, Sadahara was the question for the moment. Leiko sighed, rolled her eyes pointedly, smoothing her uniform skirt down over her legs. "What do you mean? Be more specific, Kaa-san." Somehow it always felt strange to Shinobu and Yuzuriha to even be called Tou-san or Kaa-san.

"Leiko, don't be like that," Shinobu sighed. "You know him better than we do. Of course we're really worried."

"You realize you picked a fine time to start worrying," Leiko snapped, but met her parents' hopeful expressions and relented. "Fine. You wanna know who Sadahara is? He's a smart-as-shit twisted sadist with a killer obsession with tennis and THE worst sense of humor."

Stares. Blank ones. Leiko shrugged. "Ranking matches for Seigaku's tennis club are tomorrow, you know."

"Should we cheer him on?" Yuzuriha said doubtfully.

Leiko couldn't seem to stop rolling her eyes around them. "As if, Kaa-san. We both know you have to work."

"He's going to graduate soon, just like you," Shinobu said keenly.

"And it's gonna mean a hell of a lot more to him than atashi-sama."

***

Even though it was early, Inui knew Tezuka and Ryuuzaki-sensei were already working on placement for Kantou. After all, they were going to be facing quite an opponent. Inui, being a coach, was also consulted on these things. There was a reason the other regulars sometimes came to him to request placements- not that he necessarily gave them what they asked for, of course.

He'd been helping them all this time, putting in his own input, but he had held back on telling them one thing until he was absolutely sure of it. Sitting in Ryuuzaki-sensei's office, rather late after practice, the topic of Doubles 2 was the focus once again. That was easily this year's team's weakest spot, after all.

Inui, bracelet falling about three inches as he raised his hand to interrupt, finally felt ready to make his announcement. "Tezuka. Ryuuzaki-sensei."

They turned to Inui, Ryuuzaki with a wearied look on her face, Tezuka stone. "Have some miraculous solution to our problems, Inui?" Ryuuzaki sighed wryly.

Inui pushed up his glasses with slightly manic grin. "Perhaps. Kaidoh and I have been training as a doubles pair. We can take Doubles 2."

"Kaidoh?" Ryuuzaki stared, surprised. Even Tezuka looked rather taken aback.

"You aren't a regular, Inui," Tezuka said coldly, though his voice was comparatively thoughtful, too, assessing.

Inui laughed. "We have ranking matches before Kantou, Tezuka. You might be surprised yourself."

"Then show us what you have, Inui," Ryuuzaki said, and smiled back.

***

Irony

234 words

Fuji or Inui- Age 10

Do you know what it's like to be hated for what you're good at?

I don't like other people. They don't understand a lot of things. Sometimes I feel just like them, sometimes I feel completely, fundamentally different. They're just as inconsistent as I am, even more than me in my mind, my ultimate truth, because I perceive even my mistakes as making perfect sense. Not that I make many.

I don't like people who aren't me because they don't do what I want them to do all the time. They say and do things sometimes that they definitely intend to hurt me, and sometimes that they don't mean to, but they all do wound, because I'm sensitive, contradictory, because I think so much. They can't understand something like that, because they're not in my head. I want to be like them and be hate them at the same time.

Why should I suffer just because they're lazy and stupid?

I think I'd like a friend who isn't family, who I'd never have to explain a word to that I didn't even speak in calculation, only said because that's the way I think. I want someone who does their work on their own. I'd like someone who enjoys philosophy and religion and speculation and understands the unparalleled satisfaction of revenge. I wish someone else would see the beauty and infinite complexity of just words, irony.

***

"Tezuka. I have gathered all the data. This time, I'll win. I will for sure."

***

Tezuka, Inui, you're both so serious now! This might be a little scary, but I can barely take my eyes off it! Wow, I had no idea Inui was like that! Oishi, Inui's really been aiming for Tezuka all this time? That weird guy's been after Buchou? Wow, you're so in control! I guess welcome back then, nya...

***

Tezuka, what are you going to do about this? I don't know who I want to win. This is the most fun I've had in a while. I'm glad you're strong, Inui. If you beat Tezuka, maybe I'll pay attention to you.

Ah, I'm not really ever that bored here at Seigaku, am I?

***

I'll be quitting tennis after this year. I didn't expect this, but there are a lot of things I don't expect, and I'm fine with that. Fujiko-chan, I bet you knew all about this, didn't you?

I'll be quitting tennis after this year. But at least Seigaku's really, truly strong.

***

This determination, this strength... to fight even with our buchou... how can this be possible? Sempai, even though I want to, I can't understand you. This is incredible. I suppose I shouldn't have underestimated you, sempai.

Even so, you're still holding me back. I don't want your tenacity, I want my own. Still, though, I guess I should be proud that you chose me. I wonder if that idiot is watching this.

To fight even with our buchou... what is the power of data? Your mind, your body... what kind of strength do they hold?

***

This match shouldn't be happening. It's not right for two teammates to fight each other so seriously. Tezuka's not a good goal for you, Inui! You shouldn't be doing this to yourself! If this keeps up, something bad will happen, I'm sure of it! How can I be acting so cool, so happy, when I feel like this, when this is happening!

I should have seen this coming. It's my responsibility. I only have myself to blame. You all deserve to know, because I saw it, and you didn't. Eiji, how can you look so pleased? This won't really help Inui, no matter what he thinks. This will only hurt him. This match should stop.

Tezuka, are you really trying?

***

So there isn't a place here for me anymore.

***

I really hate that style of tennis. It's my least favorite kind. It's sickening.

I didn't know this was going to happen. Buchou... what are you doing? I don't understand what's going on. Does anyone here?

Inui-sempai isn't that strong, is he? I didn't think he was determined or anything. He doesn't care about winning, except now he does. He's not talented at all. Then how can he do this? I wish I could do that. Buchou... do you hate that tennis, too?

Oishi-sempai, your story's interesting, but I'd rather watch.

Oh, well, I always thought Buchou would win, anyway. He beat me, so no way Inui-sempai could have beaten him. Yaru jan, Inui-sempai, demo mada mada dane.

***

"Kaidoh."

The day after the match with Tezuka, Inui held out a broken length of rope braid to his kouhai. Kaidoh, knee-deep in water, stared, not sure what to think of his sempai now.

"It's yours, Kaidoh. I'm giving it back."

Kaidoh's eyes widened. "Hazue's-" He stopped, looked up at Inui. For a second, his permanently angry face showed confusion, vulnerability. Then-

"Keep it, sempai," Kaidoh finally growled out. "It doesn't matter to me. Why would it?" He stopped for a second, shifted, cheeks a bit flushed from the setting sun's heat. "It was a good match, sempai."

"No, it wasn't," Inui said. "You should start your training now, Kaidoh."

Kaidoh tried to remember for a second what Inui had looked like with his glasses off. He couldn't, really. Then, before he could stop himself, he'd reached forward and pulled his sempai's glasses off, just the way he'd seen that blonde boy do.

Inui stumbled, vision blurring. "K-Kaidoh?"

"Shut up," Kaidoh said, and kissed him. At the time, Kaidoh didn't know why he'd done it, only that he was angry, and confused, and he wanted to.

He'd never kissed anyone before. His mouth met Inui-sempai's almost hesitantly, made its way inside, and it was strange, unbalanced, and Kaidoh stumbled, too, fell into Inui. Inui caught him automatically, body tense, shocked, frozen.

Inui-sempai was wet, warm but surprisingly cold, too. He felt his mind dropping away, failing him as his hands limply pulled onto blue Seigaku jersey, strange new taste like the slickness of honey, like a melting ice cube, and soft.

It was like a shock to his body, strange, completely new feeling traveling up his spine, to his brain, plaintive, confused, aching, the pleasure of everything he didn't and shouldn't know. His muscles snapped, inverting, and he stumbled back, awkward, so little balance today, the oxygen pouring in and out of his lungs like wildfire, escaping him.

He could feel his face filling with heat, red like a fire hydrant smashed open, spewing water open onto the path he jogged along each day. He didn't know what to do after that. So he just left, not even looking to see his sempai's face.

***

Inui returned to his house late, as he had the previous night. His family had been waiting for him there, Leiko, Shinobu, and Yuzuriha, all of them. "Tadaima," he said.

"Okaeri," Shinobu said back, Yuzuriha opening the door for him. Leiko, stretched out on the couch with a math textbook draped over her, stuck out her tongue at him. The radio was playing in the other room, some haphazard j-rock/j-pop piece with a female singer that didn't sound particularly happy but rather brave.

Then Yuzuriha got up and hugged him tight. Inui instinctively tried to break free, but then relaxed and let her, arms tentatively creeping around her middle. Shinobu, leaning in to kiss his wife, grasped Inui's shoulder. Then Leiko had flung herself on the three of them, and was suddenly crying, hysterically.

The probability of that had been 0%, or he'd thought so.

***

So here I am, Momo-sempai, and there's nothing I can do. I told all of them I didn't care about you, and it's true. I told them I don't know anything about you, and it's true. I said that we're not really close, and that's right. But why do I feel so strange? I don't know how to describe it. Away from all of them, and staring at your back... why do I feel like all the hurt you're probably feeling... is mine?

Are you ever going to come back? Are you ever going to play tennis again? Will you ever play tennis against me again? Will I ever kick your sorry ass at it again? Will you ever invite me anywhere, or let me freeload off you, or argue with me, or give me bicycle rides? Will you ever steal my things, or insult me, or call me cute and little, or bring me back Karupin? Will you be there to be the only one to think I'll win? Will you be nice to me for no reason and try to be friends with me anymore? We'll never play doubles again, especially after all this time, and I don't want to... but will I ever even speak to you again?

What are you feeling, Momo-sempai? Why won't you come back? I wish you would come back. I wonder if you're hurting. I hate it, but it feels like I'm hurting, too, like I'm the one who was dropped. The team won't be the same. I wish that things didn't have to be like this. That anyone had been dropped but you. This wispy, sad feeling, like that moth's wings or those chalky clouds in the sky...

You suck, Momo-sempai. Why can't you get it together? You shouldn't need me to do anything for you. You shouldn't need anyone else. So you're off the team. You should still be yourself. You're not as good as me, Momo-sempai, but you really are good. Do you know that?

I never thought like this until now. Why am I suddenly like this? Will I ever beat the old man?

Standing at the water, before the sun, you make such a dramatic, tragic figure. It doesn't suit you, Momo-sempai. It makes me want to laugh at you, even though I'm not.

This is the stupidest thing ever.

***

Morning practice, and Kaidoh and Inui, not paying attention, almost bumped into each other, coming face to face. Both of them were wearing the regular jersey today. Inui, despite the heat, was wearing the jacket with it. Kaidoh hissed menacingly before realizing who it was he'd practically collided with; upon noticing, he stopped.

"Kaidoh, did you do your training last night?" Inui asked, funny look on his face.

Kaidoh stared at him, then nodded. "O-of course, sempai..."

Inui proceeded to whip out a pitcher of ominously bubbling juice, scarier looking than ever. "If you don't work just that hard at practice today, Kaidoh, you get to be the first on the club to try Inui's New Super Special Dynamite Love Aozu Remix- Now in Orange!"

Kaidoh gulped. "Run, Kaidoh!" Kikumaru, passing by, yelled, not very helpfully.

The more things change...

***

"Kaidoh," Inui said.

"Aa?"

"Thank you."

***

Tsukinukeru sora ni

Hitomi wo tokashite

Koko kara hajimaru

Afuredasu jishin ni michite iku

Semarikuru toki karamitsuku kokyou

Tsukanoma wo kanjitara atarashii sekai he

I say you stay ari no mama

Kodoku sae mo daite

Keep your style keep your mind break it out

I'll stay with you doko made mo habataite yukou

Ashita wo tsukamu hi made

Sorezore no emotion...


	3. Omake!

Disclaimer- already there in previous parts, actually... yes... -launches into best Shinji imitation about topic-

Summary- What do you do when you finish a rather serious story? OMAKE!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

Just deal with it...

Thank you for everyone's support in my entrance to TeniPuri fandom! I'm now open for requests! -looks around, SIGHS-

Author's mind- Ooh, omake is scary... and humor? MOOOOOOU! But wait, I have humor background! -nods knowledgeably- Remember that whole story you wrote for Sailormoon which was humor, boku-chan! Yes! Ganbatte, imoto! WAI WAI WAI! I do have some pent-up silliness that needs unleashing...

-tries to think of things to omake-

Oh, and today's my BIRTHDAY! -heart heart heart-

Warning- as complete crack as I can make it.

***

Keep Your Style

Variable 3- Omake

Starbrigid

Episode One- In Which Inui Confesses to the Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name, But Nobody Really Cares

Inui faced his parents. "I'm gay."

"Big whoop," Leiko said from the corner, and returned to her math homework.

Inui frowned, corner of his mouth beginning to twitch a bit. "Tou-san. Kaa-san. Doesn't that bother you?"

"That's nice, dear," Yuzuriha called, and looked back down at the business proposal in her lap. "Hmm... add another zero and I'll think about it... oh, no wait, they're only offering zero... aw, shit... no wait, no swearing in front of the kids..."

"Dear, you're going out of character," Shinobu said gently.

"Oh, sorry."

Twitch. Twitch. "You're not going to be grandparents. I won't bring home a pretty girl who'll turn me into a normal person. You won't get to cry at a wedding. I'll leave you alone in your old age and force you to take up residence on top of a seedy karaoke bar!"

"Sadahara, you're boring me!" Leiko called airily. "Hmm... 1/4 plus ½ definitely equals 1/8... yes, yes, I are a genius..."

Inui's racket hand was beginning to shake a bit. Apparently he might have been becoming a bit angry. "This is supposed to be a dramatic revelation... Think of your only son, liking boys... kissing boys... doing illicit things with boys... ooh, like Kaidoh... oh wait, did I say that out loud? Oh, yes, I did!" Evil grin which faded at the sight of complete disinterest.

"Look at me!" Inui cried. "I'm gay! Gay, gay, gay! Homosexual! Special! Fag! Okama! Play for the home team! Right side of the road! Shirt-lifter! Fairy! Pansy! Ponce! 69?!!!"

"You're going out of character," Shinobu said lovingly.

He tried to move to tell off his father but bumped his head on the ceiling. He was way too tall, after all. "Okay, who moved the ceiling down a meter?" he frowned.

Leiko lazily raised a hand, attention still on her math homework. "X plus 2 equals 2X plus 1.... yeah, X definitely must be 15..."

"Why did you move the ceiling down?" Inui asked, grip on his notebook tightening.

"I was bored."

"Would you like some tea, dear?" Yuzuriha asked pleasantly.

"How about a shrubbery?" Shinobu said, taking on a British accent.

Inui turned to the camera. "Okay, my family clearly is more interested in physical humor and ripping off Monty Python than me. I think I'll go kill myself."

"Out of character," Shinobu said sadly, shaking his head. "So out of character..."

"Hey, I'm Japanese," Yuzuriha said. "I don't know what a shrubbery is."

"Me either," Shinobu frowned, then a lightbulb came on over his head. "Hey, wait, Sadahara, did you say you're gay?"

"Yes!" Inui said eagerly. "Yes, I did!"

"Oh," Shinobu said nonchalantly. "Just checking. Oh, Sadahara, why can't you be as intelligent and hardworking as your sister?" A pause. "Do either of you two wonderful children know what a shrubbery is?

"Nit. Nit. Nit nit nit. Bring out your dead! -insert coconut sounds- Your arm's off! Tis but a scratch. What is your favorite color? You're the king? I never voted for a king! Shrubbery! -bonks head with book- I'm pretty sure I'm not dead. Killer rabbit of doom! I soiled myself! -ridiculous french accent- We shall throw excrements at you! And there was much rejoicing." Shinobu coughed. "Okay, it's out of my system now." Evil grin. "Now onto Life of Brian!"

Inui: "Goodbye cruel world!" Dull thud.

Leiko sighed. "Geez, Sadahara, you're not gonna be able to kill yourself by jumping out of a first story window. Man, I really am a lot smarter than you, aren't I? The square root of 16 is 6..."

"No, it's 42," Inui muttered. "Well, at least I know who I get my sadism from."

***

Comments of the Peanut Gallery a.k.a. Starbrigid's sister and stuffed animals ("my children")

Sister- Okay, that's... nice... -hates all anime but Utena, Haibane Renmei, Sailor Moon, and Kenshin, and has never even seen TeniPuri, though has to listen to me babble about it-

Peggy Panda- What's gay, Mommy?

Starbrigid- Uh... HAPPY! -big smile-

Yahiko-bear- Wow! Leiko is so smart!

Starbrigid- Uh, yeah... -sweatdrops-

Logan the Insanely Huge Blue Rabbit- I liked it!

Reki-bee- Bzzz! Why did Inui have to commit suicide! SO SAD! -sorrowful- BZZZZZ!

Sandra Sheep- Baaaa. Baaaa. Baaaaaaaaa. Baaa. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Baaa. Baaa. Baaa! Baa baa! Baaa. Baa...

Starbrigid- Okay... Moving on...

***

Episode Two- In Which Inui Takes More Grief, and Fuji Is Generally Satan

"Fuji, I don't really think this is necessary..."

"Well, why not?"

"I don't really think I was that bad..."

"You mentioned my brother. In a mocking way."

"Well, yes, Fuji, but I don't think it requires me being dangled over a pit of molten lava..."

Fuji was, in fact, dangling Inui over a pit of molten lava. Anyone interested in how Fuji got this pit of molten lava is probably better off not knowing. Let's just say it had something to do with the Mount Fuji, demon summoning, and cheap cardboard.

Fuji, eyes open, was smiling at Inui in his most sadistic way. Inui, rather panicked, was squirming, trying to get out of the immensely complicated chains Fuji had bound him with. They almost made a person think Fuji had some experience with bondage before...

"What did you expect, for me to seduce you?" Fuji rolled his eyes. "Why does everyone think I'm a slut?"

"Because you'd make such a good one?" Inui grinned, and was promptly lowered a few centimeters closer to the lava. "Fuji, I do think you're overreacting! All I did was just say a few words! No harm done!"

"He's my brother, and I will protect him." Cue heroic pose.

"Yeah, that's why Mizuki's banging him..."

Sharply, "Inui, it almost sounds like you want to die..."

"INUI-SEMPAI!"

A sudden brave yell sounded, and there was Kaidoh, running towards them, ready to save his Inui-sempai. Fuji neatly sidestepped him, and Kaidoh fell into the pit of molten lava. He soon burned to death, and only a green bandana remained, floating on the top and whistling 'Make You Free.'

"You know, now that Kaidoh's dead, I'd really, really rather be seduced," Inui said hopefully, giving his best perverted look, which was pretty much his default, actually.

"Hmm." Fuji gave him a speculative look, big blue eyes never blinking once. The blood was beginning to rush to Inui's head, actually. "What's in it for me?"

Then- "Aniki?" Yuuta stood there, looking very confused.

"Yuuta?" Fuji's eyes grew big and shiny in true shoujo style. "You came to see me, Yuuta?"

Fuji dropped Inui and ran to Yuuta, glomping him. "YUUTA YUUTA YUUTA YUUTA YUUTA! I knew you loved me!"

Yuuta shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, actually, Aniki, I just came to tell you that Mizuki and I are getting married. Will you be the flower girl?"

Fuji blinked, then tossed Yuuta over into his shoulder into the lava where Kaidoh's bandanna and Inui's glasses now lived, and without a second glance. Yuuta's head joined them, since he has no such distinguishing features, being a basically unloved secondary character.

"Will you stop that?" Yuuta-head snapped to Kaidoh-bandanna, who was still whistling.

"Make you fre- Ssss," went Kaidoh-bandanna, but stopped singing.

"So, what is it like around here?" Inui-glasses asked, now brandishing a rather charred notebook.

Kaidoh-bandanna shrugged. "It's a livin'."

***

Comments of the Peanut Gallery

Sister- -was not available, so Starbrigid has made up her comment- Wow! You're so cool though odd, imoto-chan! -goes into Wayne's World bowing- I am not WORTHY! I am not WORTHY! Take my Haibane Renmei DVD's! Let me be your personal slave!

Peggy Panda- Lava's cool.

Yahiko-bear- I don't get it. Cardboard?

Logan the Insanely Huge Blue Rabbit- I liked it!

Reki-bee- Bzzz! Why did they all have to burn up! SO SAD! -sorrowful- BZZZZZ!

Sandra Sheep- Baaaa. Baaaa. Baaaaaaaaa. Baaa. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Baaa. Baaa. Baaa! Baa baa! Baaa. Baa...

Starbrigid- My stuffed animals do not appreciate my genius. Again, moving on...

***

Episode Three- In Which Inui and Kaidoh Reach New Levels of Trust in their Beautiful Platonic Friendship

"Ssss..."

"It's alright, Kaidoh."

"Ssss..."

"Really, it is."

"Inui-sempai, I really don't think it's right for me to..."

"Kaidoh, you won't come any further in your training if you don't learn to obey me."

"...hai, sempai."

"Now, it's mine, so I can choose who I want to use it, right?"

"Ssss."

"Come on, Kaidoh. It would make your sempai happy."

Kaidoh reached out and took ahold of it. Inui inhaled sharply, surprised, then smiled.

"Good, Kaidoh. You are obedient. Now what do you think?"

A startled hiss. "It's... so smooth, sempai. And long."

"Yours will be longer when you're older, Kaidoh. Probably longer than mine."

"I don't think so, sempai."

A low laugh. "How does it feel, Kaidoh?"

"I-" Kaidoh flushed. "I don't know." His hand moved up. "It's so tight!"

"It should be," Inui smiled. "It feels good..."

"Yes, it does," Kaidoh admitted, tracing his fingertips around it. Inui, from where he was sprawled out on the ground, sighed. He hadn't expected this to feel so right.

"Come on, Kaidoh," Inui hissed, voice commanding, impatient, then. "Get on with it."

"H-hai," Kaidoh said, startled. His face turned even redder as he looked down at his own, unused, untouched.

Kaidoh leaned back, then took an experimental swing. Inui, watching the older boy where he stood, nodded. "What do you think?"

Kaidoh sighed. "Ssss... I still don't think it's right for me to use your racket, sempai."

***

Comments of the Peanut Gallery

Sister- -again not available- -Starbrigid sulks- How 'bout my Kenshin posters? You want my Kenshin posters? Here, take my poster of Juri I obsess over every night and worship.

Peggy Panda- I don't get it. Kaidoh's just trying Inui's racket. Why is that funny?

Starbrigid- SWEATDROP...

Yahiko-bear- Neh, Mommy, can I take up tennis? It sounds fun.

Starbrigid- face-faults- Uh...

Logan the Insanely Huge Blue Rabbit- I liked it!

Reki-bee- Bzzz! Why did it have to not be a hentai story? SO SAD! -sorrowful- BZZZZZ!

Sandra Sheep- Baaaa. Baaaa. Baaaaaaaaa. Baaa. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Baaa. Baaa. Baaa! Baa baa! Baaa. Baa...

Starbrigid- A little worried now...

***

Episode Four- In Which A Kiss Does Not Go As Planned, and There Is An Unlawful Crossover -looks scandalized- Who me? NO, NEVER! And One of the Two is In Character

"Shut up," Kaidoh said, and kissed him. At the time, Kaidoh didn't know why he'd done it, only that he was angry, and confused, and he wanted to.

He'd never kissed anyone before. His mouth met Inui-sempai's almost hesitantly, made its way inside, and it was strange, unbalanced, and Kaidoh stumbled, too, fell into Inui.

Inui-sempai was wet, warm but surprisingly cold, too. He felt his mind dropping away, failing him as his hands limply pulled onto blue Seigaku jersey, strange new taste like the slickness of honey, like a melting ice cube, and soft.

It was like a shock to his body, strange, completely new feeling traveling up his spine, to his brain, plaintive, confused, aching, the pleasure of everything he didn't and shouldn't know. His muscles snapped, inverting, and he stumbled back, awkward, so little balance today, the oxygen pouring in and out of his lungs like wildfire, escaping him.

He could feel his face filling with heat, red like a fire hydrant smashed open, spewing water open onto the path he jogged along each day. And then Inui pushed him away and began to wail.

Kaidoh, face still red, stared at his sempai, bewildered. "Huh?"

"WAH!" Inui yelled, looking ready to cry. "What did you have to do that for?"

"I-" Kaidoh looked down unhappily.

"I'm straight!" Inui proclaimed. "I hate boys! Ew, a boy kissed me! And yucky Kaidoh, too! Nasty!"

He began to spit on the ground. "You're hurting the environment, sempai," Kaidoh said, bewildered and rather hurt.

"So? You mess with my manhood, you mess me with me," Inui declared. "Come on, let's go! You and me, outside!"

"We are outside, sempai," Kaidoh said, staring.

Inui tried to make a move, but since he didn't have his glasses, he couldn't see anything. Inui slipped and fell into the river!

"Help, I'm drowning!" Inui yelled, beginning to paddle ridiculously at the very shallow water.

A giant panda suddenly appeared, holding up a sign that said, "Out of Character." From the distance a boy's yell sounded. "Hey, Pop! They need their show's father, not you! Come back here!"

Genma: ???

"Take your father, then!" Kaidoh yelled miserably, and drop-kicked Saotome Genma back where he belonged. "Ssss!"

"Help!" Inui yelled, still apparently drowning. "HELP!"

"Oh, shut up, sempai," Kaidoh muttered.

***

Comments of the Peanut Gallery

Sister- Time to go to your clarinet lesson.

Starbrigid- Okay! -skips off-

Peggy Panda- You're corrupting my innocence, Mommy.

Yahiko-bear- Feed me.

Starbrigid- Gone.

Logan the Insanely Huge Blue Rabbit- I liked it!

Reki-bee- Bzzz! Why did Inui break Kaidoh's heart? SO SAD! -sorrowful- BZZZZZ!

Sandra Sheep- Baaaa.

Starbrigid- Gone, be back soon...

***

Episode Four- The Kiss Version Two- In Which Everyone is Sort Of In Character, But it Makes Little Difference

"Shut up," Kaidoh said, and kissed him. At the time, Kaidoh didn't know why he'd done it, only that he was angry, and confused, and he wanted to.

He'd never kissed anyone before. His mouth met Inui-sempai's almost hesitantly, made its way inside, and it was strange, unbalanced, and Kaidoh stumbled, too, fell into Inui.

Inui-sempai was wet, warm but surprisingly cold, too. He felt his mind dropping away,

failing him as his hands limply pulled onto blue Seigaku jersey, strange new taste like the slickness of honey, like a melting ice cube, and soft.

It was like a shock to his body, strange, completely new feeling traveling up his spine, to his brain, plaintive, confused, aching, the pleasure of everything he didn't and shouldn't know. His muscles snapped, inverting, and he stumbled back, awkward, so little balance today, the oxygen pouring in and out of his lungs like wildfire, escaping him.

He could feel his face filling with heat, red like a fire hydrant smashed open, spewing water open onto the path he jogged along each day. He hastily pulled back, completely speechless. Inui didn't say anything.

Then an unmistakable voice yelled, "What the hell?"

A different voice cried, "Momo, you jerk! Get off my foot!" There was a sudden outbreak of yelling, then the entirety of Seigaku's regulars, Kikumaru, Oishi, Fuji, Echizen, Kawamura, Momoshiro too, even Tezuka, tumbled out of a nearby bush.

"Inui and Kaidoh?"

"Who would have thought?"

"Hey, they're blushing!"

"Who knew Kaidoh was gay?"

"Inui and Kaidoh?"

"This is interesting..."

"Sweet..."

"Yuck! My eyes, my eyes!"

"MAMUSHI?"

Kaidoh just stared at all of them in disbelief. "W-what?"

"Yaru jan, Kaidoh-sempai," Echizen said, breaking the sudden silence and giving his sempai a cocky salute with his cap.

"T-Tezuka?" Inui stared. "Even you... and Kaidoh, you..." He reached up, felt his lips, at a loss for words or thoughts.

"Congratulations, you two!" Oishi cried. "I... I hope you're happy!"

"Does this mean Inui will stop making yucky juices?" Kikumaru asked. "And, CUTE!"

"Here, Taka-san," Fuji said quietly, handing a speechless Taka a racket.

"OH YEAH! BURNING! HEAT OF YOUTH LOVE! KAWAMURA TAKASHI-SAMA HEARTILY APPROVES, EVEN THOUGH IT IS INUI AND KAIDOH, AND ORE-SAMA HAD NO IDEA, AND IT'S RATHER GROSS! SO, HEAT! DON'T STOP!"

"Hey, Inui-sempai, since you got the stinky Mamushi, can I have my spot back?" Momo said hopefully. "Hey, Mamushi, looks like you go for psychos, huh?"

"Teme..."

"Don't let this interfere with your club activities," said Tezuka. "Let's go," he finished, and walked off. The rest of the regulars regretfully followed.

"What did-" Inui stared at Fuji.

"I think everyone, even Kikumaru, saw something a bit different about you before this," Fuji said, smiling sweetly. "You deserve each other."

The two of them stared at each other, bright red and completely confused. Then a slow smile spread over Inui's face. "What was that, Kaidoh?"

Kaidoh hissed, looked down, his softer, more vulnerable side showing, turned inside out. "I... I like you, Inui-sempai."

Inui opened his mouth to speak but before he could, Oishi jogged back to them, Kikumaru danging off his back. "Inui! Kaidoh! I forgot!" Oishi huffed, then turned up to them earnestly, Kikumaru smiling and nuzzling Oishi's back. Oishi stumbled a bit under his partner's weight, then retrieved an object from his pocket. It was... oh, God.

"Don't forget to be safe!" Oishi said earnestly, and handed it to Inui.

"Nya, Oishi, WE never-"

"EIJI!"

***

Episode Five- In Which Inui's Heart is Tragically Broken and Tezuka is Rather Strange

Tezuka stood in Inui's path, apparently having been waiting for him. "Inui? I have something I need to discuss with you," he said.

Inui nodded. "Shall we go to the clubhouse, then?"

Tezuka nodded back, and they proceeded to the clubhouse, Inui scribbling in his notebook the whole way. Finally they reached it. Tezuka closed the door carefully behind him. Inui's mind squealed, Gonna get lucky!

Tezuka sat down on the bench. "Now what I have to say cannot be said easily, I'm afraid," Tezuka said gravely.

"Yes?" Inui frowned.

"Get over it, Inui."

"Huh?" Inui blinked, completely surprised.

"Inui, I know about your obsession with me. I thought you'd get over it, but it's only getting worse, and so it has to stop."

"Tezuka..." Inui stared.

Tezuka's eyes were like ice. "Do you understand, Inui? Stop staring at me, stop following me, stop calling me, stop spying on me."

Inui looked down. "Hai, Buchou. But- why? Is there someone else?"

"Yes, actually," said Tezuka.

"Who?" Inui said shakily, heart feeling as if it had been sliced in half.

"Ryuuzaki-sensei."

***

Sister- Uh, moto? Time to come down and help get ready for your party.

Starbrigid- Working on it! :-)

Peggy Panda- -very glad she doesn't know anything about TeniPuri-

Yahiko-bear- Yay, pure love!

Starbrigid- ...Oh my GOD.

Logan the Insanely Huge Blue Rabbit- I liked it!

Reki-bee- Bzzz! Why did Tezuka break Inui's heart? SO SAD! -sorrowful- BZZZZZ!

Sandra Sheep- Baaaaaaaaa.

Starbrigid- These are getting steadily more cracked, despite the new serious writing style, I swear...

Starbrigid -much later- - Okay! -clears throat- Just cause I got distracted re-watching Trigun does NOT mean I'm not going to finish this in a blaze of glory!

***

Episode Six- In Which the Epic Omake Saga Ends, The POV is Changed to First Person Echizen, There is Fluff and Angst, and Things Get Distressingly Serious- Not Even Actually Omake Anymore! A.K.A. The Cleverly Disguised Epilogue

Author's Note- If you've seen the serious episode of Excel Saga, picture a voice yelling "the gags! the gags! NOOOOOOO!"

Watching you

This is the stupidest thing ever.

I make my mind up and push myself to my feet. It's easy, my father taught me to jump to my feet with no hands when I was little and I still can. I just don't like to. That's Kikumaru's department anyway.

I have to hurry, because I'm on the roof, and you're all the way down there, and it's a long way down. You look like you're about to leave, rubbing your head sheepishly, like you're embarrassed. You should wait for me, Momo-sempai. I don't know why I'm doing this.

I could call down to you, but I won't. That's not something I could do. So I run down the stairs, and it's not as bad as it would be to someone like Horio, because I'm strong with things like that. So the stairs are speeding past me, and I don't know when I started going this fast, and I feel like I might cry, even though I feel just as cocky as ever, smirking.

I try to count the floors but then decide it's not important. I reach the ground floor, I know because it's the end of the stairs, sunlight and green grass showing through the little window on the door. I push the door open, and it's a bit heavier than I expected, and the stop a bit higher up from the ground than I expected, so I stumble as I come out, and Momo-sempai hears me.

I give him my you-suck look, which he's always seemed completely immune to anyway. "Hey, Momo-sempai."

"Echizen?" Momo frowns, stopping in midstep.

"Wait, sempai," I say authoritatively, strolling up to where he stands, staring at me. I'm about to say something, but then my voice catches in my throat. My brow furrows. What's wrong with me?

What can I say to someone like sempai? I don't know what to say to that idiot.

"Come back to practice," I finally say, and I'm ordering him, like I have every right in the world to, and I do. I'd like to own sempai, like I'd like to own the rest of the world, so I could make him do things like coming back, so he'd stay himself like that. It's not like I like him, it's that I'm used to him, like he's used to me.

Then Momo-sempai does something, he makes himself real short, and pulls down an imaginary cap, and speaks in a voice like mine, and he's imitating me. "Yadda." Don't wanna.

I lean forward and kick him in the shin. He yelps. "Echizen! You little-"

I know I'm charismatic. I don't particularly want it, but I have power over the world around me more than anyone else, to shape people and events the way I want if I just try. That's why I'm so good at tennis, that I try. And this is important, taisetsu, precious, Japanese is still weird after speaking English, though I'd never let anyone see that, and I wanna cry.

I smile. "I need my doubles partner back, Momo-sempai."

Momo-sempai stares at me like he's never seen me before, like he's thinking real hard. Hope he doesn't hurt himself is my automatic thought, but I don't particularly like it. I'm feeling strange, like when I hug Karupin, or I bite down on a double cheeseburger after practice, or when I score a point on Tezuka-buchou or Fuji-sempai, or when Momo-sempai used to whine and beg me to get ice cream with him.

I think of Dad and his girl magazines for some reason, and that little girl related to Ryuuzaki-sensei who always cries and gets lost and falls over who Horio says likes me. I don't like those girls, and I don't like that girl. The only thing in this world I really like is tennis.

"Play a game with me or something," I blurt, and my frustration is showing.

Momo gapes at me really airheaded, then his eyes widen, and he looks almost really happy, for the first time since he played Inui-sempai. He smirks, and he smirks different than me, like a joke, that he's sharing with me, laughing with me about. "Did you miss me, Echizen?" he asked, and I think he might be surprised, because I'm surprised myself. 

Then he's darted forward and grabbed me and's messing with my hair, which I always make just right in the morning and he always used to mess up, and he's surrounded me, draped around me like Kikumaru-sempai. They're the same in a lot of ways, only they're completely different, I think. "You're so cute, kid," he laughs into my ear, nice-mocking, and I frown.

"That hurts," I say, keeping my voice disgruntled and detached. But something feels kind of warm.

This is the stupidest thing ever. But how could it not be since it's about you, Momo-sempai?

"I-" I wince, sort of looking down, only I'm with Momo-sempai, so my head goes into his shoulder, and it's big, and his jacket's soft and warm, a different kind of warm than the heat pouring down, the heat that I'd forgotten in all these other thoughts. My head's thinking of scores, 15-love, 30-love, 40-love, game. I'm sweating, and sempai is, too, and he smells like that, and tennis courts, which have their own distinctive smell that I'm in love with.

"I wish you were still a regular instead of Inui-sempai."

"Echizen?" Momo-sempai sounds almost concerned, now, and that's wrong, and I think he might be a little more like he is usually now.

So I'm me, too, and I step back, and it's the you-suck look again, and the I-rule, and what are we both doing wasting time in a place like this, anyway?

"Play a game with me, Momo-sempai. I'll kick your ass."


End file.
